Theosophy Trust

Memorial Library

Premature and Phenomenal Growths

A Russian Theosophist in a letter dated November 1883, writes as follows:

The Petersburg and
Moscow papers are greatly concerned with the
miraculous growth of a child, which has been scientifically recorded
by Medical papers. On the outskirts of Siberia, in a small village
in the family of a peasant named Savelieff, a daughter was born
in October 1881. The child, though very large at its birth, began
exhibiting a phenomenal development only at the age of three months
when she began teething. At five months she had all her teeth;
at seven she began to walk, and at eight walked as well as any
of us, pronounced words as might only a child two years old, and
measured  nearly a yard in her height! When eighteen months old
she spoke fluently, stood one arshene and a half (over four feet)
in her stockings, was proportionately large; and with her very
dark face, and long hair streaming down her back, talking as only
a child 12 years old could talk, she exhibited moreover a bust
and bosom as developed as those of a girl of seventeen! She is
a marvel to all who know her from her birth. The local board of
physicians from the neighbouring town took charge of her for scientific
purposes.

We find the fact corroborated in the Moscow Gazette, the
paper giving us, moreover, a second instance just come under the
notice of science, of another such phenomenal growth.

A Herr Schromeyer
of Hamburg, has a son, born in 1869  now a boy
of 13, and his tenth child. From his birth he arrested every one's
attention by his supernaturally rapid development. Instead
of damaging, it seemed but to improve his health, which has been
always excellent. A few months after his birth his muscular system
increased so much, that when one year old [his voice began to
lose its childish tones and changed. Its deep basso attracted
very soon the attention of some physicians. Soon after, his beard
grew, and it became so thick as to compel his parents to shave
it every two or three days. His infantine features, very dark, were gradually replaced by the face of an adult, and at five
he was mistaken by every stranger for a young man of twenty. His
limbs are normal, strictly proportionate and very fine. At six
he was a full grown and perfectly developed young man. Professor
Virchoff, the celebrated physiologist, accompanied by several
learned authorities, examined the boy several times, and is reported,
when doubt as to the age of the boy had become no longer possible  to
have given his certificate to the effect that the young boy was
entirely and fully developed.

A similar case took place in a Georgian family of Asiatics, at
Tiflis in the year 1865. A boy of four was found to have become
a full adult. He was taken to the hospital and lived there under
the eye of the Government physicians, who subjected him to the
most extraordinary experiments,  of which, most likely, he died
at the age of seven. His parents  superstitious and ignorant people  had
made several attempts to kill him, under the impression he was
the devil incarnate. There remains to this day a photograph of
this bearded baby in the writer's family. Two other cases  nearly
similar  the consequences of which were that two cousins in a
village of Southern France, became respectively father and mother
at the age of eight and seven, are on record in the Annals of
Medicine. Such cases are rare; yet we know of more than a dozen
well authenticated instances of the same from the beginning of
this century alone.

We are asked to explain and give thereupon our "occult views."
We will try an explanation. We ask no one to believe; we simply
give our personal opinion identical with that of other occultists.
The latter statement, however, necessitates a small preface.

Every race and people has its old legends and prophecies concerning
an unavoidable "End of the world," the pious portions
of civilized Christian nations having, moreover, evoluted in advance
a whole programme for the destruction of our planet. Thus the
Millenarians of America and Europe expect an instantaneous disintegration
of our earth, followed by a sudden disappearance of the wicked
and the survival of the few elect. After this catastrophe, we
are assured, the latter will remain in the service of "Christ,
who upon his new advent will personally reign on earth a thousand
years"  (on its astral skeleton, of course, since
its physical body will have disappeared). The Mohammedans give
another tale. The world's destruction will be preceded by the
advent of an Imam, whose presence alone will cause the
sudden death of the whole unclean brood of Kaffirs; the
promised "Heaven" of Mohammed will then shift down its
headquarters, and the paradisaical Houris will roam about
at the service of every faithful son of the Prophet. Hindus and
Buddhists have again a different version; the former believe in
the Kalki Avatar and the latter in the advent of Maitreya
Buddha. The true Occultist however  whether Asiatic or
European (the latter still to be found, rara-avis though
he be) has a doctrine to this effect, which he has hitherto kept
to himself. It is a theory, based on the correct knowledge of
the Past and the never failing analogy in Nature to guide
the Initiate in his prevision of future events  were even his
psychic gifts to be denied and refused to be taken into account.

Now, what the Occultists say, is this: humanity is on the descending
pathway of its cycle. The rear-guard of the 5th race is crossing
slowly the apex of its evolution and will soon find itself having
passed the turning point. And, as the descent is always more rapid
than the ascent, men of the new coming (the 6th) race are beginning
to drop in occasionally. Such children regarded in our days by
official science as exceptional monstrosities, are simply the
pioneers of that race. There is a prophecy in certain Asiatic
old books couched in the following terms, the sense of which we
may make clearer by adding to it a few words in brackets.

Thus we find1 from the above that the characteristics
of the race that will follow ours are  a darker skin, shortened
period of infancy and old age, or in other words a growth and
development that in the present age (to the profane) appear quite miraculous.

It is not the sacred legends of the East alone that throw out
hints on the future physiology of man. The Jewish Bible (See Genesis,
Chap. vi, verse 4) implies as much, when speaking of antediluvian
races (the 3rd race) it tells us, "There were giants in the
earth, in those days," and makes a distinct difference between
"the sons of God," and "the daughters of man."
Therefore, to us, Occultists, believers in the knowledge of old,
such isolated instances of premature development, are but so many
more proofs of the end of one cycle and  the beginning of another.

About Theosophy

Theosophy, in its abstract meaning, is Divine Wisdom, or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe - the homogeneity of eternal GOOD; and in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by nature, on this earth, and no more.